Wednesday, 8 July 2015

Yesterday I had a quick look at the old
iron works site at SN955058 as it was close to a site I was working at. There was a
baffling mix of calcicole and califuge species (list below), all growing
together side-by-side on the same lumps of slag, so I assume this material has highly varied
chemical properties? Probably worth a closer inspection, although the total of 122 taxa in SN90M is pretty respectable.

Friday, 3 July 2015

The distribution of this attractive liverwort in Glamorgan is slowly unravelling. Its appearance in natural and semi-natural habitats is rather sporadic, but it seems to be an almost constant component of broken swards on older coal tips. Yesterday I made a pit stop and Ffos y Fran to add some records to SO00S & SO00T and found it in both, though P.c. was only new for the latter. Other typical species of these pseudo-CG1 tip communities [have you ever NVC'd these communities Sam?] noted included Filago minima, Festuca ovina, Carlina vulgaris, Thymus polytrichus, Cladonia spp., Pilosella officinarum, Racomitrium lanuginosum, R. ericoides, Polytrichum piliferum, Hypnum cupressiforme var. lacunosum, etc. Good to see a couple of pairs of Lapwings with well-grown chicks there too.